


Survivor's Rites

by andtheblueberrymuffins



Series: Like Real People Do [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Past Character Death, Post-Season/Series 03, lion swapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-24 07:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12007506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andtheblueberrymuffins/pseuds/andtheblueberrymuffins
Summary: The Paladins have suffered losses before, but nothing quite like the one they're dealing with now. It's difficult to find the time to grieve when dealing with betrayals and Lotor's continued attacks. None of them are well-equipped to move on, in any case.Or: the sequel to 'Like Real People Do.' Now with more misery.





	1. Chapter 1

Allura walks out of the Castle’s infirmary to the sounds of a battle, to pleas for help that fill the empty spaces inside her chest. The screams tell her what to do, and she is grateful for that, because her thoughts are hollow, carved out.

She holds a bayard—Shiro’s bayard. He gave it to her, it was the last thing he gave her, and it pulls her down to the hanger. To the Black Lion. To the battle.

It makes no sense to question anything, in that moment. She takes one step and another because the others are screaming for help, and the Black Lion is pulling on her. It is the only thing that makes sense in the entire universe.

And Lotor is out there, somewhere, in the battle.

She will kill him for what he did.

Piloting the Black Lion is not the same as piloting Blue. Black is faster, stronger. Allura clicks with her in a way she had not with Blue. Perhaps it is just because she and Black want the exact same thing. There is a harmony between them, when Allura flies out to join the battle.

Lotor took something from both of them. 

Black comes with unexpected burdens, as well. The Paladin connection is present for all of them, pulling at their thoughts even before they form Voltron. But the Paladin in the Black Lion anchors that connection. It pulls on her, drawing on her mind and spirit. She gives all it asks for, splitting herself into pieces to allow Voltron to form.

Lotor is surprised to see the mighty warrior, if the sudden confusion across the battle is anything to go by. She can feel surprise from the other Paladins, as well. Surprise and confusion. Fear. A quick burning anger as they put together what must have happened.

Their attacks are tinged with rage. They carve their way through the fleets, droplets of moisture falling across Allura’s face-shield as they stab and strike and smash.

And Lotor flees. It is barely even a surprise, at this point. He is slippery and too clever by half and he killed Shiro. Allura cries out when he runs, the sound ripped from her raw throat. She wants Lotor’s head. She wants to crush Galra ships until the ache in her chest goes away. She wants—

She wants Shiro not to be dead in the infirmary.

She isn’t going to get a single one of those things.

Black’s sensors flash, then, reporting an urgent message from the planet below. Allura stares at it for a moment. Herustice’s people blocked their sensors, after offering friendship. They caused this. Something huge and cold shifts in her chest. Perhaps she will get _something_ she wants, after all. She turns Black towards the planet. The others follow.

“Allura…?” Pidge asks, quiet. Unsure. “What’s, um, what’s going on?”

“They killed Shiro,” she says, and hears their sharp intakes of breath. Keith strangles a rougher sound in his throat, but the echoes of it escape. 

“They—he’s _dead_?” Hunk asks, numb disbelief echoing across the bond. “Really dead? Not—he didn’t make it? Somehow?”

Allura thinks of his face, limp and slack. The way his eyes had stared up at nothing. The way his skin went pale around the scars stretching up from his neck and across his cheek. She swallows convulsively. “He is dead.”

Lance asks, “What are—what are we going to do?”

“Let’s head down to the planet,” Allura says, “and find out.”

#

There is an unusual commotion around Herustice’s palace. People scramble around like insects. Soldiers swarm the yards. Allura lands in their midst with enough force to shake the ground. Black throws her head back and roars, independent of any direction from Allura. It gets everyone’s attention. She steps out to find their faces upturned, eyes wide, mouths agape.

A woman rushes forward. Allura recognizes her as one of Herustice’s advisors. Her long, purple hair is not so neatly plaited now. Both pairs of her hands are clasped tightly together. Her yellow skin is blanched nearly to white. She says, “Princess. Paladin. You are—”

“Where is he?” Allura asks, her thoughts fizzing like dying stars. She feels the vibrations of the other Lions landing. The other Paladins buzz in her head, aching with loss and confusion, running hot still from battle. “Where is Herustice?”

“I… he is here, milady.” The advisor turns, gesturing hurriedly at someone back in the crowd. “We found him trying to escape and… restrained him. We—”

“Did you know of his deceit?”

The woman’s gaze drifts down, towards Allura’s hand. Her fingers ache. The weight of the sword she holds feels negligible, but more substantial than the whip she usually wields. A sword feels more fitting for her current task. Black approves of the choice. The advisor trembles.

“No, Paladin. We knew nothing of Herustice’s plan. I swear it to you.” 

And maybe she is lying, but Allura will need to determine that at another time. The others step up behind her, then, still holding their bayards. “Allura,” Keith says, his voice raw, “what’s going on?”

“We are getting answers,” Allura tells him, as a group of guards pushes through the crowd. They drag a familiar man along. Herustice. His velvet robes are ripped and soiled. A bruise mars one side of his face, swelling shut two of his eyes. The remaining two widen when he sees Allura and he tries to jerk back. The guards hold him in place.

Herustice’s expression spasms. His lips pull back from his perfectly straight teeth. He says, faux warmth saturating his voice, “Princess, I am so pleased—hruk!”

His weight is nothing when Allura wraps her fingers around his throat and lifts him into the air. He dangles, his legs kicking and his arms flailing out. His skin is damp with anxious sweat. The guards jerk, like they are unsure how to handle her sudden appearance in their midst. From her side, Keith tells them, “Don’t. Move.” His gun whines a warning.

“You deceived us,” Allura says, watching Herustice slap at her arm ineffectually. “Betrayed us. Do you deny it?” She loosens her grip, just enough that he should be able to suck in air to speak.

“Please, Princess,” he wheezes. “You must understand, Lotor promised—ngh—you would not have been harmed, I made him—hhhgh!”

Her fingers spasm. His nails drag across her vambrace. The sound they make is unpleasant. Allura stares into his eyes, watching terrible understanding dawn across his expression. She adjusts her grip on the sword and—

And Lance jerks to a stop an inch away from touching her shoulder, hissing, “Allura, what the quiznak are you doing? Put him down.” His distress and agitation push at her across the Paladin bond, still humming from battle.

She does not obey the order, but it does stop her from sliding the edge of her blade through Herustice’s chest and out his back. “Why?” she asks. A leader listens to the rest of the team, her father’s voice reminds her, in the back of her mind. She will hear him out.

“Why?” Lance laughs, a little, pitchy and nervous. “Because we, we can’t just, you know. We can’t just strangle him. Or stab him. Whatever.”

Allura cocks her head to one side. Herustice beats at her wrist. The attack has no noticeable effect. “Why? We have killed others who failed where he succeeded. We blew up a fleet of Galra cruisers, moments ago. There were thousands of soldiers aboard.”

“Yeah, but…” Lance grimaces. “But we were, you know, in the middle of a fight. He’s a prisoner. He was running away.”

His discomfort and anxiety press at her. She shoves them aside and asks, “So he should be spared for his cowardice?”

“No, that’s—”

“Let her do it,” Keith says, a grim presence orbiting the rest of them, prowling around the guards. His voice is tight with barely contained anger. “He deserves what he gets.”

“What? No. Keith, shut up. Allura, come on,” Lance says, quietly. His hand comes to rest on her shoulder, finally. King Herustice chokes with her fingers around his throat. “Let him go. We’re the good guys. We don’t execute prisoners. Right?”

She looks over at him, and he flinches at her expression. She sees her face reflected in the shield of his helmet. Her eyes are dull and tears are running down her face, unheeded. She says, hoarse, “I was going to have a family again.”

“I know,” he says, though he doesn’t. Herustice’s face is turning an interesting shade of purple. He claws at Allura’s wrist ineffectually. Hunk steps up on Allura’s other side, expression a mask of concern. “We know, Allura. But… But he didn’t kill Shiro. Lotor killed Shiro.”

Allura swallows convulsively. Her voice is hoarse. “He is responsible for it. He lured us in. He obscured our sensors.”

“I know,” Lance says. His expression twists. “But. But Lotor betrayed him, too. I’m pretty sure he didn’t sign up to have all of his people blown up. Allura, please. Don’t do this. I’m sure these guys have some kind of like…court system? Right?” He looks around at the crowd desperately, Allura does not follow his gaze, but he looks relieved at whatever her sees. “See? We can get—we’ll get justice, okay?”

For a moment, thoughts of the other universe, where she had been an Empress, creep into her mind. She wonders if a moment like this was how it started and shudders. She makes a different choice.

“Princess,” Keith says, his anger hot and beguiling. “Please.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, turning away from Lance. She drops Herustice to the ground, where he collapses, coughing. She is shaking and does not know why. She looks at the advisor and says, “Explain your court system to me, immediately.”

#

“We have no current law to fit what Herustice did,” the advisor—her name is Meeranna, Allura learns—says, wringing her hands together. Allura sits on Black’s paw, Shiro’s helmet resting by her hip. Herustice waits, far enough away that she is not overly tempted to skewer him through, surrounded by guards. Keith circles him. The other Paladins wait in an unhappy bunch. “Treason is next to unheard of among our people, and there are those who argued that the King cannot commit such an action, in any case….”

Allura stares at her, unblinking. Her eyes sting. She says, “There will be no alliance between us if he is not punished.” She cocks her head to the side. “And you have already seen what your value is to Lotor. He would have killed you all. Shiro _saved_ you, after Herustice delivered you all to death.”

Meeranna blanches. She twists so hard at her fingers that it is a wonder she does not strip the skin off. “We understand that,” she says. “We—we honor the sacrifice of the Black Paladin. And so we searched our records. There _is_ a precedent, from far in our past. We have stripped Herustice and his family line of his position. He will be kept imprisoned, alone, for the rest of his natural life. Is this…is this acceptable, to you?”

Allura stares Meeranna and the crowd beyond her. Her raw pain has faded, just enough for her to see the fear on their expressions. She sits in their midst on a weapon beyond anything they have the capacity to fight. Her chest aches with sudden cold. They’d give her anything they thought she wanted, she realizes, to make her go away.

She turns her face to the side, her mouth bitter and her heart heavy. “Yes,” she says, sliding off of Black’s paw, though it is not. She desires to coat her sword with Herustice’s blood. She would find watching the light go out of his eyes to be acceptable.

But she is not Lotor. Or Zarkon. Or the woman who founded an Empire based on slavery.

She will _not_ become any of them, no matter the agony in her chest.

This solution will have to be sufficient.

“And our alliance stands?” Meeranna calls, her expression caught somewhere between relief and continued anxiety.

Allura pauses, her jaw tightening. Politics. It is all politics. She shuts her eyes and a touch against her elbow draws her back. She looks across into Lance’s eyes, full of soft encouragement. He nods. “Yes,” she says. “I suppose it does.”

#

Allura does not want to go back to the Castle. She realizes it too late, once they have already left the planet. For a moment, she considers just turning towards the blackness of space and _going_ , looking for somewhere where Shiro’s body is not. The desire is strong enough that Black’s engines spool up, a course plotting itself across her view-screen.

“Princess?” Coran asks, across the comm-system. “Are—is everything—I’m relieved to see you’re returning.”

Allura shakes her head and the coordinates for flight fall away. “How is the Castle?” she asks, because it is her responsibility to ask.

“We sustained some damage,” Coran says, as Allura and the others come in for a landing. “Nothing that can’t be repaired. How did you fare on the planet?”

“As well as we could have,” Allura says. She climbs from Black, Shiro’s helmet under her arm, and finds Coran waiting for her, concern etched across his expression. He has looked at her with grief in his gaze too often, since they awoke. She looks away from his face.

“Princess…” he says, and reaches for her only to falter. He clears his throat. “I—found him. In the infirmary. I put him in stasis, so he would not be disturbed.”

Allura nods jerkily. Her voice claws at her throat when she says, “Thank you, Coran. I will go see him now.” It is, simultaneously, the only and the last thing she wants to do.

#

The others follow. Allura is not surprised. She is aware of the weight of their grief, obvious even outside of their connection through the Lions. It presses at her when she walks across the infirmary, to the bed that holds Shiro. Coran did not move him. Did not touch him. The stasis field shimmers over the sheet, over his still face.

Keith walks up to the other side of the bed and stares down before reaching back jerkily, trying to grab something as he sways. Hunk takes his arm, and Keith leans into him heavily, his breathing loud and harsh in the quiet of the room.

Pidge, standing at the foot of the bed, covers her face with both hands and turns aside, her shoulders quaking. Lance curls an arm around her, pulling her close. He bows his head. The air smells of their tears.

“What—” Allura’s voice cracks alarmingly, and she must start again. “What rites would he want? Keith?”

Keith keeps staring at the body on the bed. There are tears running from his eyes. He does not seem aware of them. “I don’t—I don’t know. He wasn’t religious. He—and I haven’t been—I only went to my father’s funeral, and I was—I was small—I don’t remember… everything. I don’t know what we should do, I—” His back curls over, then, and Hunk turns him, guiding him a few steps away and speaking with him softly.

When he seems more controlled, Allura says, “Tell me what you remember. We will figure out the rest.”

#

In the end, they use what rituals Keith remembers as being appropriate and fill in the rest with Altean customs. Coran says this is what Shiro would have wanted, anyway. Allura does not ask if they spoke about it. It is too soon. It may never not be.

They each wet Shiro’s lips, the water shining on his dry skin. After the last of them finish, Coran ushers the pilots out, leaving Allura alone with… the body. She strokes a hand back over his hair, delaying momentarily, looking for selfish succor. She squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath. She pulls her shoulders back and smothers her weakness.

She is practiced at removing his armor, but there is no joy in the activity. She works methodically, setting the pieces aside to be washed, until he is naked and bare. The lights in the infirmary are dim and soft, but there is nothing that can be done to make him look less like a corpse. Allura hums, brokenly, striving to maintain the notes that honor the dead.

She gathers the required bowls of water, six of them, one for each limb, one for his torso, one just for his head, and begins washing his body from the feet upward. She is thorough and careful, slow when her hands shake badly, so that she does not spill any of the water. She traces scars, the ones he arrived with and the ones he earned, and hates that he spent so much of his short life hurt, fighting. She cleans the scarred skin that marks the end of his right arm, and has to stop for a moment, so her tears do not splatter across him.

She washes his face through blurry eyes and then covers him again, engaging the stasis field while she moves to deal with the armor.

It must be cleaned in a specific order and, for a moment, she fears she has forgotten how. This part of the burial rites was never one of her responsibilities. But it would have been, if they had found her father’s body. And she has kept herself awake enough nights, imagining each step, that she remembers, now.

She shines each piece of armor, coating it with a substance that lends it a faint glow. It stings her hands, making her aware of little cuts she had not noticed, but she ignores the pain. It is a small discomfort, compared to the agony inside of her.

Once she has finished, she turns, looking for the clothing Coran promised to bring.

Allura lifts one of her father’s fine, dark shirts and has to set it down again, before she sinks to the floor and bends over, her shame at the tears at least mitigated by the fact that no one is there to see them. Eventually, she contains herself enough to stand.

She dresses him in soft, rich fabrics, as would have befit his station. She smooths away any wrinkles and then pulls back on his armor, the humming in the back of her throat numbing her thoughts. She holds the thin circlet, another of her father’s possessions, and then slides it into place over his forehead. He is worthy of it. She sets his helmet beside his head, last, so that he is ready to face whatever awaits him on the other side of death. She leans over and kisses him, one last time, his lips cold and still and hard.

And then she steps back, standing at the head of his bed, her hands folded and shaking in front of her.

“Tell them they can come in now,” she tells Coran.

#

They come dressed in their armor, unchanged. They bring objects and leave them around him. Lance drops a strong metal thing—a pair of small wings—by his hand. Hunk leaves a plate of the cookies that Shiro always ate a tremendous amount of—steam is still rising off of them. Pidge places a computer chip onto his chest without a word of explanation. Keith holds what he brought for a long time, rocking his weight back and forth, and finally slides a piece of paper, folded in half and well-worn, into Shiro’s palm, closing his fingers around it.

Allura closes her eyes and draws her shoulders back as straight as she can.

She does not speak. She just hums, and, after a while, is surprised when other voices join her.

The night is long. Pain spreads from her feet to her hips to her back, as the hours pass. Her mouth and throat go dry even while she weeps. She keeps her eyes closed. She does not know if human and Altean spirits are the same. She does not know if she even believes that there is anything left to exit his body. She does not know if there is an afterlife, much less if they would share one. But she keeps her eyes shut, anyway.

She thinks, as her legs shake from standing in the same position, and her ribs ache, that there is a soft brush of touch across her mouth, and she gasps. But she does not open her eyes, not until a bell tolls, signifying the end of the vigil.

She is surprised, distantly, to find the others have all remained. They are swaying and drooping, but they all stand around the bed, in the same positions they would have taken in Voltron.

Her chest aches.

“Princess?” Coran asks, his voice a hoarse croak. “It’s time.”

She nods. “I know.”

#

They place his body in the white casket. The glow from his armor reflects off of the sides, bathing him in light. He looks peaceful, but mostly he looks dead. The others cluster close, but not quite touching, as Allura holds her hand over the controls, hesitating, for just a moment.

Someone squeezes her shoulder, comfort radiating through the touch, and she swallows, and lowers her hand.

The top of the casket slides shut. There is a flash of light around the edges, as flame and fire return his body to stardust.

From the hold, there comes a tremendous sound as the Lions roar, shaking the bones of the Castle.

Allura squeezes her eyes shut and lets the sound vibrate her, lets it cover the sound of her sobs.

And then it is over. And she turns. And she walks to her room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, just so no one thinks I'm completely cruel, this series (not this particular story in the series) DOES eventually end on a positive note! There's just, there's a lot of angst on the way. SO MUCH ANGST.

Allura’s quarters are quiet. Empty. Allura stands inside the doorway, suddenly unsure what to do next. The vigil and funeral kept her going, before. They laid out what needed done and she did it. But now there is nothing. The future feels like a black hole, sucking her in.

The mice chatter at her, concerned, and she just stares at them. They seem like something from another world.

She looks at her bed. She is exhausted, as tired as she can remember being. But she does not want to crawl onto that mattress, to lie beneath those sheets. Not without Shiro. Not now that he is gone and will never—

She grabs the bed and throws it against the wall. The crash is satisfying, though the effort makes her breath hard, far harder than it should. She looks at the spilled pillows and blankets and sinks to her knees. She braces one hand on the floor and grips at her chest with the other, at the terrible, aching pain hiding behind her ribs.

Water drops around her fingers and she squeezes her eyes shut. She’s so tired. She wishes—

It doesn’t matter.

She curls up, eventually, where she is. It seems pointless to move. The mice try to drag a blanket across her back and she shoos them away. She breathes shakily until, between one shudder and the next, she falls asleep.

#

She dreams.

The images are sweet.

It is worse than she could have ever imagined.

#

Allura wakes up feeling raw, scraped out. She looks at her toppled bed and then turns away from it. She goes to the bathroom and washes her skin while carefully avoiding the mirror. She pulls back her hair. She dresses. The day and all of its responsibilities beckon. They have commitments to other peoples.

And they must find Lotor.

He will pay for what he did. She will make him. That knowledge gives her the strength to smooth out her expression and stride out of the door.

#

Allura calls a meeting on the bridge, after she has read over the logs for the night before. They do not appear to have missed anything too vital over the last few quintants. The Paladins look hollow-eyed, as they file into the room. They are quiet, all of them. Even Hunk and Lance. They hash out where they will go next, what they will do, in subdued voices, and then drift away.

Allura catches Lance’s arm as he makes to leave and pulls him to the side.

“Hey, Allura,” he says, his smile a shadow of itself, his shoulders slumped downward. He rubs a hand across the back of his neck. The skin under his eyes is dark, almost black. “Is something wrong?”

Everything is wrong. Allura shakes her head. She stares at the wall for a moment, trying to determine how to phrase what she needs to say. She draws in a deep breath and says, “Thank you for what you did. With Herustice.”

Lance’s expression freezes. He looks to the side, crossing his arms. “You know, after thinking about it, I’m not so sure I deserve thanks for that.”

“No, you do.” She sighs. The words are hard to say, but they must be. He deserves to hear it. “I never told you about the characteristics of the Blue Paladin.”

He blinks over at her, then. She reads surprise in his expression. “No. I guess you didn’t, what with, you know, one disaster and another.”

She nods. It is a fair enough excuse, but still… She should have found the time. “The Paladins of old were, by and large, extremely focused individuals. They were dedicated to their cause. Sometimes to the exclusion of all else. But the Blue Lion chose a Paladin that was kind and empathetic, wise in his own way. One who saw the sides of an issue the others often missed. My father said the original Blue Paladin led them away from many choices that they would have otherwise came to regret….”

Lance stares at her, his eyes soft and his expression wretched. She wishes he’d stop. He says, “Allura, I…”

She does not want to hear it, suddenly. She cannot hold up the weight in her chest any longer, the ache in her soul. She turns aside, and says, as she walks away, “And that is how I know I was not meant to be the Blue Paladin.”

He does not call after her. She takes it as a small mercy.

#

Allura heads down to the training rooms. She wants nothing more than to beat Lotor until he no longer breathes, but, barring that, she will fight the holograms until she is too tired to think. She sets the program on the highest level allowable, and steps into the middle of the room.

It feels good, to let loose, to tear the projections apart, to destroy them. She tears through them, through the ever-increasing numbers, ignoring the blows they land in return, the damage that they do. She fights until they swarm over her, overwhelming her with numbers. One kicks away her bayard. Others pin her down. A blow lands across her cheek, and another, and—

“End program,” Keith snaps, from the doorway. The constructs fade away in an instant, leaving her sprawled on the floor, breathing hard. She rolls onto her side, gulping at the air, and glares.

“I wasn’t finished.”

He crosses his arms. “Sure looked like you were,” he says.

She scowls and stands, dragging the back of her hand across her nose. It blossoms with pain. Her sleeve comes away red. She grimaces. “Is there something I can help you with?” she asks. She does not want to speak with him. It is nothing personal. She does not want to speak with _anyone_. She feels unfit for conversation.

“I…” He hesitates, “I wanted to talk to you.” She stares at him, waiting, and eventually he continues. “I couldn’t have done what you did. With Herustice. After what he did. I couldn’t have just walked away. If it were up to me, he’d be… I don’t know.”

Allura blinks, taken aback. “What? You didn’t even _like_ Shiro. You treated him like an imposter, the entire time he was with us.”

Keith flinches, nodding. He picks at his gloves, lingering right by the doors. “I—you’re right. I got too caught up in what he wasn’t to consider what he was, until it was too late. But that’s not. I mean. That’s not my point. _You_ loved him.”

The words sting, but that doesn’t make them any less true. “Yes.”

He bobs his head up and down. “I couldn’t have done it.”

She stares at him. He does not _sound_ recriminatory, but she is not sure why else he would bring it up. She says, quietly, defensively, “It was the right thing to do.”

He nods again and looks up to meet her gaze. He looks miserable and confused, lost. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.” He blows out a hard breath, visibly shakes himself, and looks around the room. “So. You wanna go?”

He is not as strong as she is. But he is a good warrior, and stronger than the humans on the team. And she is already worn down from the projections. And, perhaps most importantly, she wants to fight something that bleeds. She nods. “Yes.”

Afterwards, they limp out of the training room, leaning on one another and nursing their injuries. The physical aches hold back the other pain, the one inside of her, enough for her to clear her throat and ask, “Do you—the Black Lion—”

“No,” Keith interrupts, gritting his bruised jaw. “Don’t ask me to do it again. Please.”

“Alright,” Allura says, and doesn’t.

#

Allura dreams of a hand brushing her hair off of her neck, of scarred ridges under her fingers, of a smile too rarely seen.

She wakes up on the couch in the Castle’s common quarters and stares at the ceiling, breathing around the knot in her throat. Her hands curl into fists on her thighs.

“Allura?” Hunk says, softly. She rolls her head and finds him standing by the edge of the couch, holding a plate and looking ready to bolt. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were, you know. Sleeping. I, uh. I made you some breakfast. No one saw you eat yesterday. Not that we were watching to see if you ate or not. I’m just—you want some? It’s good.” He holds the plate out.

Steam rises off of the food. She has no appetite for it, but she nods anyway, and accepts it. She will need to maintain her energy levels, if they are to find Lotor. If she is to kill him. Hunk sits at the other end of the coach and fiddles with nothing. She tells him, after taking a bite she doesn’t really taste, “It is very good. Thank you, Hunk.”

He glances up, cautious hope creeping across his features. “Yeah? Well, good. I remember, you know, when my grandmother… well. It was hard, afterwards. And, I thought…” He shrugs and gestures at the plate, eventually clearing his throat. “Do you need anything else?”

She stares at him. The things she needs are many and impossible, but she knows that is not what he meant. She says, “I need to find Lotor.”

“Mm,” he says, looking away. “Do you think—I mean, do you really think we can take him? We didn’t do so well when it was, you know, this group. Before. And he—”

Allura sets aside her plate. Most of the food is gone. She says, “Don’t worry. I am going to kill him.”

He blinks up at her, twisting his hands in his lap. “Oh,” he says, quiet. “Right. Of course.”

She nods. “Thank you again for the meal.”

#

Pidge finds her on the bridge, when it is quiet and still. She leans against the console and says, “Hey, Allura, I was—what happened to your face?”

Allura sighs. “Nothing. I was sparring with Keith last quintant. It’s worse than it looks.”

“Keith did that?” Pidge sounds openly alarmed. She draws up like she intends to storm off.

Allura touches her arm, halting her forward progress. “I gave better than I got. We were only practicing. Was there something you needed?”

Pidge stares, mouth pursed tight, scanning Allura’s expression like lines of code. “I—I wanted to see how you were. If you, I don’t know, wanted to talk. Or. Whatever. About, uh. What happened.”

Allura grimaces and looks away. “I really don’t,” she says.

“Yeah. I never wanted to talk about this kind of thing, either. I prefer to try to figure things out. Mom said I buried myself in research,” Pidge says. She sounds wistful. She drapes her arms across the console and slouches. “People always ask, though, and I wanted… I don’t know. To make sure.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Allura lies. She does not want to talk about what was lost with any of them. Ever again. She just wants to move forward. She wants to make Lotor pay. That’s all. It is a fixed goal, the new point of gravity that is keeping her from flying apart.

Pidge hums and bites at her bottom lip. She says, “Was there, um, anything else you might want to tell me? Anything important? About your… health? That maybe I’d… I don’t know. Understand?” She wrinkles her nose and grumbles something under her breath.

Allura stares, legitimately confused. She says, “I don’t… believe so.” Maybe it is a human thing. If so, no one has mentioned it to her. “Is there something you think I should tell you?”

Pidge grimaces. “Uh, I guess not?” She exhales and presses one hand to her face, messing up her glasses. “Moving on, um, that other Lion is acting really strange.” She waves a hand, bringing up a path cut across the stars. “See? All of a sudden it’s heading right towards us. If it keeps up this pace, it’ll be on top of us in a week. Maybe two.”

Allura is relieved that the conversation seems to have steered itself back into realms that make sense, even if the news seems grim. She stares at the path the Lion is taking through the universe and shivers. It feels like an ill portent. “We need to let the others know. If it _is_ some tool of Lotor’s, we need to be prepared to face it.”

#

They track the other Lion’s progress that quintant, before losing it again the following morning. It itches at Allura’s thoughts but, honestly, they have so many larger worries. They rout a Galra barricade around a potential ally, pick up some chatter about Zarkon that makes no sense, and drag their way through one quintant after another. 

Allura catches the others watching her and looking away when they get caught; she attributes it to worries about her grief, and tries to show them that they do not need to worry about her stability. She feels itchy on the quintants without a fight, and goes to find Keith, hoping for another sparring session to let off some of the pressure building in her bones.

He flinches back, a vaguely nauseous look on his face. “No,” he says, shaking his head and taking a step back. “No, Allura, I. No. Why don’t we… go on a run. Or something. Instead.”

Allura shoves down her disappointment and nods. She must have hurt him more than she thought when they sparred. She should have restrained herself more fully, but at the time her emotions had been too close to the surface. She does not blame him for hesitating, now, after seeing her in the moment of her most blatant weakness.

They run. He asks a half-dozen times if she needs to stop.

#

Two movements after Shiro’s death, they end up agreeing to a state dinner on a planet with an uncomfortably warm climate.

Allura twists her arms back, doing up the clasps of her dress and biting her tongue against the memory of Shiro’s hands—capable of great feats in battle and equally able to close a hundred tiny clasps without pinching her skin once. She almost falters in her task, but there isn’t time, so she shoves down the knot in her throat. She brushes out the mass of her hair, smooths her skirts, and leaves to join the others.

The other Paladins wear their uniforms, and she envies them, but she must be the representative they need—the rulers of the planet specifically asked to speak to the princess of Altea. 

They land on the planet to find a magnificent banquet set up for their benefit. Food stretches through three open, airy rooms. It smells spicy and sweet, and comes in brilliant colors. A delegation of the planet’s inhabitants, a race of tall beings with eyes that shimmer like gems and scaled skin that comes in jewel-toned patterns, steps forward to greet them. The leader is a beautiful female, her amethyst scales darkening to royal purple across the crown of her head. Allura expects—counts on—Lance swooping in to occupy the woman, but he is subdued.

The greetings progress formally. 

The planet’s inhabitants—the Hsh’norvians—speak with a soft hissing sibilance to their words. They offer out cups of sweet liquid that tastes of alcohol. Allura sips at it before passing the cup on, and that, apparently, ends the greeting ritual. The Hsh’norvians visibly relax. One of the group, a male with lime green scales, says, “Will Voltron’s Black Paladin be joining us later?”

The pressure lurking in Allura’s chest threatens to rise and she shoves it down brutally. “No,” she says, through a frozen smile, “I am afraid not.”

“Ah.” Looks of disappointment flit across their faces. “We had hoped… well. Lyshya,” the leader gestures at the lime-green male, “was captured briefly by the Galra. He fought in their gladiatorial games and hoped to speak to the one they called Champion.”

Allura’s eyes sting. She is suddenly, terribly unsure if her voice will remain steady if she tries to speak.

“He fell in battle,” Lance says, a sudden presence at her elbow. “A few quintants ago.”

The Hsh’norvians stir in shock. A murmur spreads through their ranks. A few flick forked tongues out to taste the air, and the leader steps forward. “My condolences,” she says, one three-fingered hand extended out to Allura. “We acknowledge and feel your loss, Princess.”

Allura’s voice comes out thick, but it does not crack when she says, “Thank you.” She clears her throat, grateful when the Hsh’norvians usher them further into the rooms.

#

It takes approximately five ticks on the Hsh’norvian planet before Allura becomes uncomfortably warm. Her heavy dress and hair hold in the heat; by the end of the meal she is dizzy with it. Or perhaps it was something she ate. The food was strange and she did not question it—Altean digestive systems can handle almost anything—but when it is time to stand and leave she sways, her balance thrown off.

“Princess?” Hunk asks in an undertone, curling a hand around her elbow. He seems unaffected by the light-headedness currently making the world wobble for her. 

She waves a hand to indicate that everything is fine. It would not do to offend their new allies by implying their hospitality injured her. She should be able to get back to the Castle if Hunk stays close by, in any case. The back of her dress is damp with sweat.

She takes a step and weaves when the floor decides to shift under her feet. “Whoa there,” Hunk says, tightening his grip and looking around the room. “Hey, could we get some water here, maybe?” 

“That’s not necessary,” Allura says, grimacing at the thought of causing a scene. Perhaps she will just sit for a little while longer, until the strange dizzy spell passes. She tugs her arm free of Hunk’s grip, looking for a relatively quiet place. She spoke too late. Lyshya is already moving towards them, his eyes startlingly blue against his green skin.

He is holding something in his hand.

For a moment, while her vision swims, Allura thinks it is a cup.

And then he shifts his grip on it, and she realizes it is not.

“For Zarkon!” he hisses, leaping forward as Allura jerks back, clumsy in her skirts and the dizzy mess of her mind. She turns her shoulder to the blow—the knife is not _that_ large, she should be—

A body shoves into her, knocking her back and to the side. Keith grunts, pain in the sound, and Lyshya roars in thwarted outrage. The Hsh’norvian yanks his blade back—it is coated with red—and moves to stab again, whip-fast. Keith raises an arm to block the blow, and there is a single bang.

Lyshya blinks his gem-bright eyes. He looks surprised, his hand drifting towards his chest, the new hole there, before he stumbles a step to the side and, finally, collapses.

“Everyone freeze,” Lance orders, standing atop one of the tables, empty plates scattered by his feet. He sweeps his gun around the room. Hunk stands close by, his giant gun up and ready. Pidge crouches on a chair, scanning the area. “Keith?”

“I’m fine,” Keith says, but Allura can smell his blood. “Something is wrong with Allura, though. We need to get her out of here.” Allura would protest, but the dizziness remains. She tells herself it is fading, but when he pulls one of her arms over his shoulders, she goes with it. She doesn’t have much choice. Her tongue feels thick and clumsy. Did they _poison_ her? 

“What is going on here?” the Hsh’norvian leader demands, sweeping in from somewhere. Keith shifts, his bayard shifting into a sword even as he drags Allura towards Hunk.

“I’d like to ask you the same thing,” Lance shouts back. “Because this looks a lot like an attempt to assassinate Princess Allura.”

“What?” the Hsh’norvian sounds legitimately horrified, but perhaps she is just a skilled actress. “We would never—”

“He tried to stab her!” Pidge interrupts, suddenly much closer. They are all moving together, Allura realizes, some of the blurriness fading from her vision. They are forming a tight knot around her. “If Keith hadn’t pushed her out of the way…”

There is a moment of silence. Perhaps they are all processing it. Allura shakes her head and is not overcome with vertigo, a huge success. The Hsh’norvian woman says, finally, “I assure you, he did _not_ act with my knowledge. My people are—”

“We don’t care,” Keith says, short and clipped. He is leaving a trail of blood behind. “At all. You just better hope she’s alright. Because if she isn’t…”

They leave the feasting rooms in a confusing rush, but Allura’s balance has nearly returned by the time they make it to the shuttle. She can turn her head without the world jumping. She says, as they push her into a chair, “I should go back and speak with them.”

“What?” Keith scoffs. “No. Lance, get us out of here.” The shuttle rises.

Allura scowls up at him. “We are not leaving things on a good note.”

“Too bad,” Keith snaps. “They tried to kill you. And they did something to you. We’re taking you to the infirmary.”

She glares and stands. The world stays steady. “I’m not the one who needs the infirmary,” she shoots back, gesturing at his shoulder. She doesn’t understand when they started yelling at each other, but it feels good. “What the quiznak were you thinking, Keith?”

He scowls at her, ignoring the injury to his shoulder. Blood is running down his arm. His eyes blaze and he bites out, “I was thinking Shiro loved you. And he was the closest thing to family I had. And I will not let him down. Not again.” He is breathing hard by the end of it. Each word sounds like a vow. The inside of the shuttle vibrates with upset and anger.

Allura stares back at him, the words stinging like a slap across her face. She blinks back the burn in her eyes and says, “I don’t think that—”

“Pidge found your medical records,” he blurts, then, before she can go further. “Okay? So we know. About.” He waves a hand towards her midsection. The others freeze. Someone audibly inhales. 

Hunk wheezes, “Oh, my God. Are we doing this? Right now?”

Allura stares at them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We know you’re pregnant!” Keith shouts back. “What if—” Keith barks a laugh that lacks even an ounce of amusement. He tugs at his hair. “You can’t—I can’t let anything happen to—he loved you and you’re—you’re going to have his baby, and—what if something happened to you, what if you lost—” he strangles off. His expression is broken.

It hurts, under her ribs, the mention of the child-in-potential. She has not allowed herself to even think about it, not since Shiro died, out of a sense of self-preservation. The words throw her back to that avoided day, to the cautious joy she’d felt for a varga or two, the promise of a someday she’d never get.

She had not known if they would be genetically compatible. Had not even thought about it, in truth. Touching him, holding him, had been a relief, a balm when the rest of the word was going mad and falling apart. She’d been desperate for something good. Discovering that they could, someday, have a family, had shaken her in a way she hadn’t been prepared for.

And then he’d died.

The same quintant.

She wonders, now, if she had found the time to tell him, if she blurted it before they ran out to face Lotor’s attack, would he still have sacrificed himself? Would he still have left her behind? Would it have made his actions more likely, or less?

It matters little. She cannot go back and change the past. It is a lesson she’s had to learn over and over again. The family she’d imagined—yearned for—has been dashed to pieces before it could even form. She does not want to consider gathering up the shards. She blinks, the pain driving all of the fight out of her in a rush. “Keith,” she says, quietly, and then looks around at the rest of them. “All of you. I believe you misunderstand. I am not pregnant.”

For a beat they stare at her. Keith’s expression crumbles further, before he looks to the side, hunching into himself. He makes a terrible, ragged sound. Hunk speaks first. “You… lost it?”

Allura blinks. “No.” The thought is like a knife in her ribs. She’s not sure she could have handled that, on top of everything else. “No. I simply haven’t allowed the pregnancy to progress beyond the initial embryonic stage. That would be terribly irresponsible. Who knows what the strain of piloting a lion would do to a developing fetus…” She shudders at the thought.

They stare at her. Lance cocks his head to the side and asks, “You can just… pause a pregnancy?”

“Of course.” There is silence for a moment. “Can humans… not? Our reproductive systems are so similar, I assumed….”

“No,” Pidge says, drawing out the word. “No, we can’t do that. We have to either let it play out or stop it, uh, permanently.”

“Oh.” The atmosphere in the shuttle still feels tense, but some of the anger has, at least, faded. Embarrassment is rushing in to fill up the emptied space. “Well. Alteans can.”

“So what happens, then?” Keith asks, holding pressure to his bleeding shoulder and scowling at the floor. His voice sounds shredded, but he looks better than he did a moment before. “How does it…work?”

Allura shrugs. She is tempted, briefly, to tell them all that it is none of their business. But they are a team. They must work together. She can see that pushing them out of this will damage that relationship. They have already made it their business, without considering her wishes. So she sighs and says, “The embryo will remain in… well. It is similar to stasis, I suppose. And, then, when the timing is… acceptable, it will progress. Traditionally, Alteans do not announce a pregnancy until well after that point.”

Keith nods, he does not look as abashed as she thinks he should. Lance stands by the controls and says, “Well, if that’s all sorted, we’re back, so maybe we should get that stab wound looked at? And make sure you’re not still poisoned or whatever? Just in case.”

#

“I’m sorry,” Pidge says, in the infirmary, when they are watching Coran tend to Keith’s shoulder. “I’m the one who found your medical records. I shouldn’t have… told everyone.” She bites at her lower lip, looking miserable.

Allura’s irritation flares again and she shoves it down. “Probably not,” she says with a shrug. “But there are worse things.”

“I guess.” Pidge bounces one leg. She keeps her eyes on Keith. “So, it’ll be alright. Really?”

Allura does not think anything is likely to be alright, not _really_. But she nods anyway. “Yes,” she says. “It will be fine.”

She goes back to her quarters, eventually, and looks at her upended bed before turning on her heel and walking back out. She does it every night, as though, eventually, she will be able to bear it. Shiro’s quarters are quiet and still. She crawls into the nest she’s made in his blankets and rests her head on his pillow.

Eventually, she sleeps.

Her dreams are sweet and cruel.


	3. Chapter 3

In Allura’s dreams, she has Lotor before her. She does not remember how she cornered him. It does not matter. What matters is the humming sword in her hand and the anger in her chest. In her dreams, he fights like a ghost, flickering in and out of existence, always a step ahead of her, always just a little faster, a little stronger, a little smarter.

In her dreams, that does not matter.

She manages to grab him. To curl fingers around his hated throat, to twist and stab up into his body with the glowing sword she holds. In her dreams, blood runs hot down over her hands, sticky and thick. In her dreams, Lotor asks, “Allura?” and it is not _his_ voice, hated and hurting.

In her dreams, she looks up from the grievous wound she carved into flesh and bone, and Shiro blinks at her, looking surprised before he stumbles back a step, blood pouring out of his mouth. He is dressed for his funeral, in the clothes she put on him. Light shines from his skin. Allura jerks towards him and—

\--and she wakes up with a scream in her throat, sitting bolt upright in his bed, shuddering. She shoves at the sheets, the fabric clings to her skin, restraining her. Her hair is tangled around her arms. Sweat sheens her skin. She half-falls out of the bed, landing hard on her knees and scrubbing at her hands with her nightdress.

“Um, Princess?” Coran asks over the comm, his voice startling in the room.

“Yes?” she asks. Her voice sounds wrong. “What is it?”

“Is everything… alright? The Black Lion gave us a bit of a shock a moment ago, and I wanted…”

“I’m fine,” Allura says, squeezing her eyes shut, willing it to be true. She must be alright. “Black was probably just stretching.”

“Of course,” Coran says, and he does not sound like he believes her, but she has given him no reason to. She leans back against the bed, pressing her hands over her face, and waits for her heartbeat to slow down.

She would have thought the dreams would be easier to deal with, with familiarity. They are not.

#

“It’s getting close,” Lance says, one morning when they are all gathered in the control room. He stares at the blinking spot that marks the last known location of the mystery Lion. It is nearly on top of them, now. It will make it to their current location in quintants. It is definitely following them. Every time they have moved, it has adjusted its course to continue towards them.

Allura hums agreement, glaring at the spot. “Do we know yet how it is tracking us?” she asks.

“Sorry, Princess,” Coran answers, rubbing at his eyes. “We’ve scanning the Castle for anything that could be transmitting information. We haven’t found anything.”

“Please don’t take off again in a shuttle,” Hunk says, casting her a worried look that he then slides over to Keith. “Or a Lion. Or anything else. I’m addressing that to everyone it could apply to. I don’t care if it’s tracking one of us. Let it. It’s just one Lion; we have five.”

“We could just go check it out,” Pidge suggests, bouncing one knee.

The idea appeals. Allura would like a fight, and Lotor has yet to show himself. If the Lion is some weapon of his, perhaps he is with it. She wants to face him, more than anything else. But. She must be reasonable. She leads the team now. Running off without a plan is no longer an option. She asks, “We are sure the Blade has no information about it?”

Keith shakes his head. “They have no idea what it is. Besides dangerous.”

Allura leans back. “It isn’t using wormhole travel.”

“Not as far as we can tell,” Pidge confirms.

Lance sighs. “So, we could send the Green Lion out to get a look at it. You could come right back if—”

“Whoa!” Pidge stands, her hands flying across the scanners as the others focus their attention on her.

“What?” Hunk asks, “What’s—holy cow, what’s all of _that_?”

_That_ appears to be a fleet of Galra ships, closing on the mysterious Lion. “Looks like it _is_ some ploy of Lotor’s,” Keith says with a sigh, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Or they’re just curious about what it is,” Hunk says. “They could even be going to attack it.”

“We have no reason to think that,” Keith shoots back.

Lance shrugs and says, “Yeah, well, we have no reason not to think that. And what if you’re wrong, Mister Worst-Case Scenario? What if whoever is in that Lion is coming to help us? We can’t just let them get slaughtered by the Galra.”

“I know I’m curious to see what it is before, you know, the Galra get a hold of it,” Pidge says, spinning around in her chair and blinking up at them. “If we’re taking a vote, I say we go. Princess?”

They are all looking at her, she realizes. She stares at the screen, the weight of their expectations resting on her shoulders. She asks, examining the Galra ships, “Is that Lotor’s ship?”

Pidge shrugs. “Could be. It’s hard to tell from here.”

They have not seen him in movements. Allura curls her fingers tight, trying to weigh the costs and benefits, trying not to just charge in. Black pushes against her thoughts, then, just forcefully enough to make a desire known. It settles some of the roil in Allura’s gut. She takes a deep breath, pushes away the images of her dream, and straightens her shoulders.

“Let’s go check it out.”

#

“Princess,” Coran says, quietly, after the others have gone to their Lions. Allura will join them after she jumps them in. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Allura pulls her helmet on. She is as ready as she can be to join the battle. “No,” she admits.

“Oh, well.” Coran reaches out and straightens her shoulder-guards, fussily. “Alright then. Go out there and meet this new Lion! Just… be careful, too, won’t you? Don’t do anything too… we need you, you know? If anything happened to you…”

She pauses for a moment to look at him, truly and clearly. He looks tired and worried, and she has neglected him recently, she knows. The others needed her more. And she dislikes how much of her thoughts he can see, just by looking at her.

She reaches up, covers his hand with hers, and manages a smile. “I will be, Coran,” she promises. “You, too, alright? Try not to take on the entire fleet by yourself, if they show up.”

He smiles at her, some of the exhaustion draining out of his expression. “I make no promises!” he says, and the smile they share is brittle, but honest.

#

Allura opens a wormhole that will put them close to the strange Lion, before the Galra fleet can reach it. It is better to keep the threats, real and potential, as separated as they possibly can. Her stomach clenches on hard uncertainty as the Lions pass through the wormhole and she takes the Castle through. She is moving for the hangar as soon as they cross the event horizon.

No one starts screaming. She hears no weapon fire. That is a good sign, surely.

By the time Allura reaches the hangar, Black is standing, her eyes aglow, her tail twitching. It is… unusual. Allura blinks up at her and asks, “Is something wrong?”

The response she gets is confusing, mostly because Black seems unsure about what is going on. The one thing the great Lion seems clear about is wanting to check out the new Lion, as soon as possible. Allura’s ill-feeling intensifies—it is strange to see Black acting so—but she climbs in. She gets the feeling that Black will leave without her, if she does not hurry.

“Alright,” Allura says, once she has joined the others. The other Lion should reach them in ticks. “Form a defensive pattern around the Castle. We don’t know what it’s going to do, or what its capabilities are. Everyone be ready for the worst.”

She stares forward, her pulse racing under her skin, relieved that they will finally discover the nature of this Lion, anxious that it could be worse than anything they have ever faced, ready to—

She yelps when Black moves forward, out of position. “Allura?” Keith calls. “Where are you going?”

“It’s not me!” Allura shouts back, as Black accelerates. All Allura is getting from her is a puzzled, excited thrum. Black isn’t sure what is going on, but she is cautiously, terribly hopeful about _something_.

Hunk clears his throat, “So, should we just… hang back here, or?”

“No.” Allura says, giving up pulling on the controls. Black deserves her trust, if nothing else. “No, we’ll stick together. Follow me, I suppose. Coran, you stay back. Just in case.” The others flank her, streaking out into the blackness of space, towards the speck on the scanners.

It resolves itself into a dot, quickly. Black’s excitement increases, becomes contagious across the bond. It is difficult for Allura to hold onto her reticence. She tries to maintain her wariness, and it is a challenge she does not quite master as the strange Lion finally, finally reaches them.

“Holy quiznak,” Lance breathes, butchering her language, as they get a look at the Lion. It is _humongous_ , easily twice as large as Black. It has a mane of white, surrounding its head. It is, mostly, a white Lion, though there are stripes of other colors across its great body. It cuts thrusters as it reaches them, and floats there. It does not open fire.

Black purrs, low and loud, and takes Allura closer.

The movement shakes Allura loose of her shock. She thumbs on her comm and says, “Unknown Lion pilot, please identify yourself immediately.” 

She gets nothing but static back, but the White Lion slides forward to meet Black, close enough for Black to bump her head against its chin, jerking Allura in the cockpit. “Well,” Pidge says, “I mean, the Lions seem to think it’s okay, right? And it isn’t attacking us.”

“Those are good signs,” Hunk says. “Maybe we should—”

A streak of weapon’s fire across the blackness of space cuts Hunk’s suggestion short. Allura recognizes the weapon from the comet-ship Lotor built. It is aimed directly at her, and she curses—she’d been distracted by Black’s fascination with the new Lion—bracing for impact.

The White Lion bulldozes her aside, catching the entirety of the shot. The impact throws it back. She hopes, if the pilot is to be an ally, that he or she is unharmed. There is not time to check.

“Here they come!” Lance yells, the Lions falling into formation, readiness spiking across the pilot bond. Allura looks at the information scrolling across her screen, the other Lion pushed from her thoughts for the moment. It is Lotor who has come to meet the Lion. Not just his people. The comet-ship is there, along with Lotor’s fighter, and cruisers. “Are we staying to fight? Or bugging out with the new guy? What’s the play?

Something frozen in her chest cracks open, releasing threads of icy anger that wind down her limbs and weave through her ribs, until they fill her up completely. “We fight,” she says.

Keith’s approval hits her hard. Red is moving almost before she speaks, charging towards the nearest cruiser. Allura, her thoughts clear and cold, is aware that, perhaps, they are not the best match for leader and second-in-command. Their weaknesses align too closely. He will never call her back, if she goes too far. They’ve proved that often enough. But there is nothing to be done about it right at that moment.

Right now, Lotor is before her, for the first time since he stole her future. She grits her jaw and heads for the fight.

“Hello, Paladins.” Lotor’s voice crackles across the comms, overriding the normal transmissions as Allura carves through the side of a cruiser that happened to be in her way. “I wondered if I’d find you here. Made a new friend, have you?”

Allura gives up trying to get the comm to close, her jaws grinding together at the sound of his voice. By the gods, but she hates him. Her stomach is hard and heavy. Her heart burns with anger.

“I suppose you needed one. My little whisperers told me you were down a pilot. Tell me, how _did_ you like my little present, while he lasted?”

Allura cries out, the sound ripped involuntarily from her throat. He has no right to talk about Shiro. No right at all. Not after— 

“Don’t listen to him, Allura,” Lance calls, grunting as he takes a blow to the side. “ _No one_ listen to the terrible Galra dude who wants to make us angry, alright?”

“I heard some of you liked him more than others,” Lotor continues, ignoring Lance. “We got reports, before he broke the arm, you know.” Lotor makes a thick, warm sound. She can hear him smirking. “I have to say, Princess, I did not expect you to be so… welcoming.”

Heat rushes to her face. Her eyes burn. She snarls, and Black opens her mouth and roars. They reach Lotor’s fighter, leaving behind a trail of broken cruisers and burning ruin. Allura is breathing hard, shakily. Her heartbeat feels like a constant roar. None of that matters. She says, not sure if he can even hear her, “I’m going to kill you.”

He tsks back, dodging her first attack. “I don’t think so. How will you get the real Black Paladin back, then?”

Allura freezes, all the heat in her veins goes to ice in an instant. She hears Hunk demanding, “What? What did he say? What’s he talking about?” but it feels far away.

“Nothing,” Pidge snaps back, “he’s lying. He’s a liar. Allura, don’t listen to him.”

“I am many things,” Lotor says. “But not a liar. I won’t deny that there isn’t much left of him, anymore. He’s hardly any fun, not like he was when he first came to us. Oh, the way he fought back when he thought you might come for him was inspiring. Now…” Lotor sighs and then his tone brightens. “We did tell hm what you did, Princess. With the clone. He didn’t want to believe us, but the records from the arm were very… explicit.”

It can’t be true. Allura’s hands shake around the controls and the words repeat in her head, like a mantra. It can’t be true. Shiro—both Shiros—they have to be dead. If he were alive, he would have come back to them. They would have heard something, from someone. He’s—they’re—dead. She had to accept that. Twice. He’s—

“Tell you what,” Lotor says, all joviality. “You can have what remains of him, if you want. He’s no more use to me.”

Allura’s throat is so tight that she does not know how she is breathing. It’s not true. It can’t be true. But what if it is? How much is she willing to risk by disregarding him, ignoring him?

She asks, her voice cracking, “What do you want?”

“A most reasonable question,” Lotor purrs, even as the others yell at her, their voices blending incomprehensibly in her head. “I want _you_ , Princess. You… fascinate me. And not just because of what I saw from the clone. Surrender yourself to me, and I will hand over the Black Paladin.”

Allura blinks, trying to clear her blurry vision. Even if what he is saying is true… the man he offers is not _her_ Shiro. But that doesn’t feel like it matters. If she can save him—some version of him, any version of him that still lives—she has to. She has to try.

“Allura, no!” Lance yells, and the Blue Lion is suddenly in front of her. “He is _lying_ to you.”

“You don’t know that,” she says, not recognizing her voice. It is some broken person speaking. Not her. “Not for sure.” She will do it, she realizes, the internal conflict falling away, abandoned. She can’t abandon him—any version of him—to the Galra. It is almost a relief, to find that she cannot even consider it. She says, “Keith—”

Keith roars and slices out of nowhere, crashing into the side of Lotor’s fighter. “No!” Allura does not know what he is railing against. “It’s a trap!” Red closes her jaws on the fighter and tears.

Allura yells, “What?”

And the comet-ship fires into their midst, throwing them all into blackness.

#

Allura shakes her head, coming to with ringing ears and an aching head. She groans, becoming aware of explosions, the past few moments all crashing back into place in her memory. An alarm is blaring. She squints forward, and then cries out, jerking on the controls just in time to avoid another blast. “Report!” she cries, though she can already feel that the others are still dazed or unconscious.

The comet-ship moves around them, angling for another shot. Lotor’s vessel limps away from battle, suffering from the Red Lion’s attack.

 

Allura snarls, thought pushed aside for the moment. Her hands tighten on the controls. She could catch Lotor. She could. He is slow—damaged. She could destroy him. But that would mean leaving the others….

“Still considering my offer, Princess?” Lotor asks, his voice crackling over the damaged connection.

Allura squeezes her eyes shut, knowing what she has to do. Hating it. “You fired on the others!”

“Yes, well,” he says, and he sounds bored, but she can hear the strain underneath his tone. “I never said I was going to let _them_ go. Now. What’s it going to be,” Lotor asks, mocking. “Me, or them?”

Allura hates him, with every fiber of her being. He is a monster. She wants his blood so badly. She thought she wanted it more than anything else. But the comet-ship will tear the others apart. They are not ready for the attack. Half of them are not even _conscious_. Allura cries out, frustration ripping her to shreds, and turns to protect them.

Lotor laughs. The sound rings in her ears.

#

Allura faces off against the comet-ship. It is obscenely fast. They weave around one another, and she can tell she is slower—she is flying damaged. But she has to keep it away from the others. It keeps trying to get around her. The battle drags. It is an exhausting effort, facing it on her own. She watches it charge its weapon, she watches it aim again at the others, only just beginning to stir. She cries out, desperate, sure she will not be able to stop the attack this time.

And the comet-ship pivots at the last moment. It aims the shot she thought was going to take out Hunk directly towards her. There is no time to dodge. There is no time to defend against it. Allura braces, gritting her teeth, and—

And it drags a scream out of her, anyway.

The pain is terrible. It throws her temporarily into blackness and floods her mouth with blood. She groans, blinking away spots. The Black Lion is dark around her, but she can see, through the view-screen, that the comet-ship is preparing another charge.

She stares at it, knowing the next blast means death, and something cold and peaceful spreads through her bones.

She does not feel the dread about the prospect that she was expecting.

The ship fires.

And there is a blur of white. A tremendous roar. She sees two forelegs through the view-screen. The White Lion stands over her, a beam of energy shooting from its mouth. It hits the energy beam from the comet-ship and the sound is deafening. Allura grunts; the sound hurts. It shakes her brain in her skull. She squints against the blinding light, holding a hand up to shield her eyes.

The Black Lion shakes. Everything is breathtakingly white for a long, long moment. And then something gives, with another crack of sound.

When the spots fade enough for her to see, the comet-ship is floating in space, sparks jumping across its surface. Its weapons are powered down. It does not seem to be working at all. The White Lion moves forward, huge and bulky, and roars a challenge across space.

Lotor’s people answer it by fleeing. Allura watches them race off, one after another, one cruiser snagging the comet-ship in a beam as they leave. Allura twists at Black’s dark controls, watching Lotor escape and unable to do anything about it.

Her chest feels hollow.

“Ugh, my head,” Hunk complains, a moment later. “Holy cow, guys. Where’s Lotor? What did I miss?”

“I think,” Allura says, as Black slowly comes back online, “that we should discuss it back at the Castle. Pilot of the White Lion, do you wish to join us?”

Apparently, time has not resolved the other pilot’s comm issues. Allura receives nothing but static. But the Lion does follow them, when they turn towards the Castle. They will speak soon enough, one way or another.

#

Allura spends the flight back to the Castle trying to gather the shreds of her control. She lands before she completes the process, but she feels… steady enough. She will be able to handle whatever the White Lion throws at them. Perhaps it does not even have a pilot. The Lions have proven that they will fly themselves, if the situation is dire enough.

She climbs out of Black, who remains at attention, eyes aglow, excitement pushing at Allura. The White Lion is too big for the hangar. It hunches over to fit, bending its head down and opening its mouth. Allura takes a step away from Black and hesitates, something in her hindbrain screaming with sudden alarm. The hair on the back of her neck rises.

The other pilots wander towards her, eyes on the White Lion, bayards at hand.

“Man,” Lance whispers, “I suddenly have a _really bad_ feeling about this.”

But it is too late to do anything about Lance and his feelings—or Allura’s. The door to the White Lion opens with a soft hiss. Allura sucks in a breath and holds it. Her heart bangs like a hammer on her ribs, desperate to escape the cage of her body.

The pilot walks down the ramp, and Allura’s vision blurs at the sight of just his boots, his legs, because—

_No_.

No, it can’t be.

For a moment, she thinks he is returned to her, impossible as that is. Did not her mother tell her the story of Algwennar, who sacrificed herself for her people and then stepped out of a fallen star, whole and hale, returned by the gods? Are not a thousand mad things possible and happening around her every day? Did not Zarkon’s tainted love bring back the one _he_ loved? Can she not have this—

But the pilot stepping out of the White Lion is not her man.

Not really.

His neck and cheek are smooth, unblemished by the red, branching scars she grew so familiar with. His hair is wrong, shorter on the sides, longer on the top. His hand is Galra technology. He is… bigger, than her Shiro, who was not with them long enough to lose the lean, hunted look the Galra gave him. 

But he is wearing the armor of the Black Paladin.

Allura gropes a hand out, steadying herself on Black’s paw as her knees threaten to give. Bile climbs up the back of her throat. Her head swims. It no longer quite feels attached to her body. Her heart races, fit to burst.

“Finally,” he says, this man who is not hers, relief breaking over his expression like a wave as his gaze takes them all in. He smiles at her, and her heart spasms in her chest, like he reached right in and squeezed it between uncareful fingers. His voice is thick with joy when he says, “I found you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, there's part two of the 'Like Real People Do' series! I've got one more part planned, which will likely be longer than both existing parts put together. (And which promises a happy ending after, like... significantly more angst).
> 
> I also have a couple little one-shots I'm going to do, they might go up on tumblr though, not here.
> 
> Speaking of tumblr, you can check me out [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/andtheblueberrymuffin).

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have a [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/andtheblueberrymuffin) and there's little that makes me more fulfilled as a writer than having people holler at me here or there, so...


End file.
